


On the Eve of War

by NB_Cecil



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Carlos is dyspraxic, Cecil is a Good Husband, Cecil is the Voice of Night Vale, Dysphoria, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Night Vale AU, Nonbinary Cecil, Other, Princess Cecil, Transphobia, all Carloses are trans Carloses, but Cecil is the royal kind of Princess too, diet culture (mention), fairy Carlos, fairytale AU, fatphobia (mention), ftm Carlos, gender is a social construct, princess is a gender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 09:48:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11124681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NB_Cecil/pseuds/NB_Cecil
Summary: AU where Cecil is a princess and Carlos is a fairy, everything is trans af and Night Vale is badass in defending its values.





	On the Eve of War

Carlos is _supposed_  to be all straight lines, sharp angles, great leathery wings and the heir to acres of allotment. He is _supposed_  to be the Duchess of Allium, a Fairy noble. He is none of this. Not a Duchess—he is not a woman. Not an Allium—he has no interest in onion farming. He is not lines and angles either. No matter how hard he tried to exercise as a teenager, muscle tone always eluded him and anyway, he likes his fat body with soft bulges and curves where Fairy bodies are expected have hard flatness and corners. The one place, his chest, where curve is expected—no _required_ —he has had made flat, not with traditional spells and potions, but with a surgeon's sharp steel, which is definitely _not_ the Fairy way.

So here he is, on the morning after his wedding to Princess Cecil, the Voice of the kingdom of Night Vale, whom protocol dictates is the only person in the entire land permitted to address visiting dignitaries, helping his new husband prepare for the inevitable diplomatic showdown with a delegation—including the Fairy Queen herself—who have just crossed the boarder and are heading toward the palace. It was inevitable their marriage would cause trouble with the neighbours, but the citizens of Night Vale were unanimous in their support for their Princess and their adopted Scientist, and the three heads of the Royal Family—the City Council, Mayor and Sheriff—all gave their blessing to go ahead, even though it would most likely trigger a war.

 _Love is._ City Council's press release said, and that seemed to have settled the matter.

 _A disgraced Fairy noble cannot marry a Princess, the Voice of an entire kingdom!_ The words sneered off the page of the diplomatic correspondence. _Even when that Princess was chosen by loud pulses emitted from a geographical feature instead of by hereditary royal bloodline, as is the proper way. Even when that Princess should be a_ Prince _and wear trousers and ride horses and do_ Princely _things, not wear elaborate dresses and coo over small fluffy animals. And if Princess Cecil Palmer is a real Princess, shouldn't we call him_ she _?_

"I can see why you left." Cecil sighs, placing the letter on the small desk and removing his reading glasses. "I don't get why they're so invested in imposing their bigotry on other kingdoms though."

"It makes them uneasy, "Carlos explains, "To have what they see as great degeneracy in a neighbouring kingdom. It makes them question their worldview and then they have to consider their worldview might be wrong. They feel like Night Vale stole me from them and if they let me go without a fight, they'll lose face."

"But you were you before you came here. We granted you asylum based on the evidence you supplied of the transphobia you faced in your kingdom of origin."

"Yes, but they see Night Vale being accepting and diverse and they think it must have infected Fairyland somehow, that it must have infected me, and turned me... well, y'know." Carlos shrugs.

Cecil frowns and smooths his hands over the fabric of his skirt.

For all its surveillance and weird goings-on, Night Vale had never had a concept of _transgender_ , never mind _transphobia_ , until Carlos came along, wrote it on a form and did a lot of explaining. Children are just "it" until they fix on a permanent name, choose a gender from the extensive official list or coin their own, choose pronouns which may or may not align with that gender, and develop their individual taste in clothes, presentation, and a personality in general, to the point where the machines in Hidden Gorge are satisfied they are sure enough in their identity and mature enough mentally and physically to be assigned a function in society. The idea that bodies and genital configurations might be linked to a person's gender had been so alien to the officials processing Carlos's asylum claim as to be laughable. Hidden Gorge declared Cecil the Voice of Night Vale when he was seventeen, a role that comes with a royal title, and he chose the title of Princess which, incidentally, is also his chosen gender. Carlos, immediately after the ceremony to bestow citizenship upon him, got Scientist, and that worked out just fine.

 _Scientist_. When Carlos first arrived in Night Vale, he had been something of a talking point. Most citizens had never seen a Fairy before, and for a while it was a refreshing change to be known as Carlos the Fairy, not the Duchess-Who-isn't-Lean-Lanky-and-Graceful-but-is-Fat-Short-and-Dyspraxic-Who-Prefers-Science-to-Magic-Won't-Grow-Onions-and-Declares-Herself-a-Man-in-a-Matriarchal-Society. There was no way he was keeping the surname Allium. And as for the first name he was given at birth? Not even Cecil ever asked for that. But Carlos is not his body. He is not a Fairy. Well, he is in that _Fairy_ is his species and while he has no interest in changing that or pretending he's not, after thirty years of fighting everything Fairyland expected of him, the identity and body of _Fairy_ does not sit entirely well with Carlos. Fairy was a better fit for a surname than Allium, but it wasn't completely comfortable. He began using crepe bandages to bind his wings close to his shoulders and wearing a loose lab coat to draw attention away from the bulges at his back. Cecil had fussed over him, running his fingers carefully down Carlos's ribs every evening to check for fractures or bruises and mentioning in his daily Town Addresses his concern for Carlos's skeletal structure under sustained pressure, before commissioning his dressmaker to design a sort of backwards corset that held Carlos's wings almost flat to his back without constricting his chest too much. And then Carlos was assigned the role of Scientist and he wore his lab coat with a new pride, a comfortable authority, and began correcting people—"No, I'm Carlos the _Scientist_ , not Carlos the Fairy". The people of Night Vale smiled, nodded, sometimes gave him a congratulatory handshake or friendly pat on the arm, and went off to tell their friends "Carlos has changed his name. He's Carlos the Scientist now" and within a week, no-one was calling him Fairy.

"Let's start with the points we cannot concede." Cecil suggests, replacing his glasses on the bridge of his nose, opening a notebook and checking off the list on his fingers as he reads.

"Our marriage will not be annulled and neither will we be getting a divorce; you will remain in Night Vale; Fairyland will use your name and pronouns on all official correspondence and in all negotiations; you have renounced citizenship of Fairyland and your former title, therefore you will not be conducting business or performing social functions in the kingdom; Fairyland will not station troops along our boarders; and it will not try to meddle further in Night Vale's affairs."

"That's going to start a war for sure." Carlos reaches across the desk to stroke his husband's hand. "Am I really worth all this? I mean... I've been thinking..." The Scientist looks away.

"These matters are not open to negotiation. Not even with you." Cecil's tone has a dangerous edge to it.

"But perhaps we could, um, concede the title part? And the business part?"

"And what would that mean in practice?"

Cecil leans back in his chair, elbows on the armrests, fingertips steepled in front of his chest. He looks expectantly at Carlos over his half-moon glasses.

"Well, they could call me _Duke_ of Allium—" Carlos visibly shudders "—And the Allium business interests could easily be run from a distance. I'd spend a couple of hours a week reviewing crop rotation plans, harvest and sales figures, signing off wages, writing letters... general admin really." He rubs his palms together before running his fingers through his hair, nervously.

"That's not all, is it?"

"No," Carlos's shoulders slump, "As a noble I would be expected to attend Court for the Spring Ball, the Harvest Parade, the Solstice Ceremonies—"

"This is unacceptable." Cecil cuts him off. "You made a choice with your physical and mental wellbeing in mind. Trips back and forth to Fairyland, even with the title _Duke—_ which you renounced for a reason—written on a treaty, you and I both know they'll soon slip back into _Duchess_ and the wrong pronouns and they'll start insisting you lose weight and wear dresses. It's a slippery slope I am not ok with seeing you slide down."

"But if I can come back here. To you. To this." Carlos gestures with his arm to indicate Night Vale in general and in particular their suite of rooms in the palace, the home they've made together. "If I can put on the Duke, the dress, the onions and the magic, knowing it's only a performance and I can take them all off again when I get home, I think I can cope." He moves his chair closer to his husband's and rests his head against the Voice's shoulder. "I'm not worth a war."

The desk upends, scattering papers, inkwells, quills and a mug of coffee over the hearth rug. Cecil towers over the Scientist. He is all Princess, all Voice, all regal power and the embodiment of the anger of a nation which has taken a refugee to its heart and will defend that refugee with all its military, financial and diplomatic resources. He draws a deep breath and when he speaks, it is slow, deliberate, just above a whisper.

"YOU ARE WORTH A WAR." The dangerous tone is not at the edges now, it is his whole Voice. "NIGHT VALE WILL NOT COMPROMISE ITS PRINCIPLES AND ALLOW ONE OF ITS OWN CITIZENS TO BE COERCED INTO BEING SOMETHING HE IS NOT."

He looks down at Carlos, who feels so insignificant in the face of Cecil's unrestrained majesty he wishes the floor would open and swallow him up. Cecil crouches to his husband's level, takes both his hands in his own and looks him in the eye.

"You are worth a war, love." The Voice and the danger are gone, replaced with gentle compassion. "I say this in a personal capacity as your husband, your lover, as someone who wants to see you thriving and happy, and I say it as Princess Cecil Palmer, Voice of Night Vale." The edge to his tone is creeping back. "There will be no compromise on this."

Cecil lifts a hand gently to his husband's cheek to wipe away the tears before pulling him into a tight embrace.

"Thank you." Carlos whispers shakily into his neck.

Carlos the Scientist clings to his Princess, beaten down, exhausted, but confident the Voice of Night Vale will be the most competent advocate anyone could wish for in negotiations with his former homeland. There will almost certainly be a war, but Night Vale will give no ground when it comes to treating people of _every_ kind as people.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a set of Magic and Fairytale Dice (see http://www.laurenceking.com/us/magic-and-fairy-tale-dice/) I used to make a list on Night Vale AUs. This is the first story I've written from the dice's suggestions, but there may be more in the future.
> 
> I wrote the Voice in SMALL CAPS as a nod to Discworld's Death.
> 
> I'm fighting my employers at the moment to get them to use my pronouns and it's proving to be a real spoon drain. I suspect the circumstances around Carlos's fleeing Fairyland and Cecil's uncompromising stance to negotiations have something to do with this. I have my own Princess Cecil in my trade union who are doing a lot of the fighting for me.


End file.
